Rating System

For the average concerned parent, America's video game-movie-television-compact disc rating system has been aptly called an alphabet soup. Quick - what do these symbols represent? R, TVMA, M. Most moviegoers know R means a restricted movie, suitable for those 17 and older. But only savvy ratings watchers may know that TVMA is roughly the equivalent of R for television shows and that M is basically an R for home-use video games. Throw in color-coded ratings for arcade video games and parental advisory stickers for music products, and then add TV rating letters - S for sexual situations, FV for fantasy violence, and so on. The result is a mixed-up multi-media ratings system producing dizziness rather than clarity for parents and culture consumers attempting to assess how much violence, sex and foul language is about to be dumped in their or their children's laps.

Something weird happened when I was viewing late-night reruns of "thirtysomething," that broody TV drama from the 1980s. Before the episode began, an unusual message flashed across the screen: Due to adult themes, viewer discretion is advised. Or something like that. As a devoted rerun addict of this series, I knew the warning was not a regular feature of a show that was always about adult themes, as its title aptly suggests. This episode opened with a couple in bed. First, there was the kissing scene.

Under pressure from politicians and the public, the nation's television executives said yesterday they would develop a ratings system to guide parents concerned about the sexual and violent content of shows. "They're handing the TV remote control back to America's parents," President Clinton said after meeting for two hours with 30 entertainment executives at the White House. Clinton hailed the decision to rate programs, similarly to the way movies are now rated, as a "powerful tool" for parents.

The Philadelphia Board of Education yesterday named an outside review panel to evaluate its complex and controversial three-year-old school rating system. The six-member panel will be made up of national experts on education and chaired by Andrew Porter, a University of Wisconsin professor and the director of the Center for Education Research. Over the next several months, the panel will scrutinize the school district's performance index. That index tracks SAT-9 test scores, student and staff attendance, and promotion and dropout rates, then calculates goals for improvement for each school, cluster and the district as a whole.

As I sit at the kitchen table scanning the newspaper, my 11-year-old son walks into the room. I instinctively grab something to cover the paper as he comes over to me. Why? Because so often the headlines and news stories just aren't appropriate for him to read. Think of some of the biggest news stories of the last few months: pedophile priests in the Catholic Church, children kidnapped from their bedrooms, and a sniper randomly shooting people in and around Washington. Newspapers aren't the only offenders.

Question: It seems to me that if you look at the horsepower ratings of the performance cars of 30 years ago, and those of today, we really haven't made that much progress in performance terms. Would you agree? Answer: Nope. First of all, comparing the horsepower of those cars with contemporary machinery is mixing automotive apples and oranges. Back then, the horsepower ratings were obtained from very unrealistic dynamometer trials intended to maximize the rating. The engines exhausted into big collectors, thereby eliminating the power-robbing back pressure created by their mufflers.

Last week, Linda Mangold checked out the goofy alien hit 3rd Rock From the Sun, which airs at 8 p.m. Sundays and is rated TVPG. Although the rating indicates a need for parental guidance, Mangold was "floored" by what she saw. "They said 'suck,' 'damn' . . . 'hookers.' They compared cheerleaders to hookers. I was like, 'Oh, my God,' " said Mangold, a homemaker who lives in West Chester with her children, ages 6 and 8. Mangold said such language merited a stricter rating - a TV14.

Federal researchers said yesterday that they would conduct a five-year study of the conditions that lead to wildfires in the Pinelands - scene of a 1,300-acre blaze that caused as much as $1 million in property damage this month. The study is needed because the federal five-tier rating system for fire danger, which is accurate in most parts of the country, does not work well in New Jersey's 1.1-million-acre preserve. In most places, rain tends to lessen the chance of fire on a given day, said John Hom, who will lead the study for the U.S. Forest Service.

December 10, 1993 | By David Hess and Donna St. George, INQUIRER WASHINGTON BUREAU

As Americans become more alarmed by violence and politicians assail those who turn it into entertainment, the industry is taking a second look at its movies, television programs, music and even video games. Yesterday, shortly before a Senate panel began a hearing on the effect of violent or sexually explicit video games, a coalition of 140 manufacturers and distributors offered to set up a rating system. They proposed labels of GA for a general audience including young children; MA-13, for more mature audiences over 13 years of age, and MA-17 for those over 17. "The market does not need and the public does not want another government entity to be created for this purpose," Ilene Rosenthal, general counsel for the Software Publishers Association, said.

West Chester Henderson sophomore swimmer Tom McCormick showed recently he's up to the task even though older brothers Ken and Dave have set some tough standards for him. In Henderson's 114-71 loss to Methacton on Dec. 12, Tom McCormick set a Methacton pool record in his specialty, the 100-yard breaststroke, with a time of 58.48 seconds. That time was .82 of a second better than the mark set in 1997 by Methacton's Dan Szilier, who went on to swim for Notre Dame. "I aspire to be as good as my brothers," said McCormick, who comes from a family of swimmers.

It had been a tumultuous weekend for UberX, the ride-sharing service that was launched in Philadelphia Friday despite a ban from the Philadelphia Parking Authority. Customers were plentiful. But so was the backlash from regulators, who sent a series of curt tweets threatening to impound UberX drivers' cars - and then making good on it in a sting operation, seizing six vehicles and fining each driver $1,000. By Monday morning, drivers were nothing if not cautious. One declined an interview, leaving an Inquirer reporter with a $7 receipt for a 13-second ride.

FOR THE 36th consecutive season, the Daily News is attempting to give college basketball coaches a helping hand with recruiting. Our five positions for seniors are point guards, wing guards, small forwards, power forwards and centers. Players are categorized by the position we expect them to play in college. But remember, a player's role can depend upon the level of school he attends. Those players in "The Best" category are those we think would be most capable of playing in Division I or the higher levels of Division II, or in a competitive junior-college program if there's a need for academic strengthening.

The U.S. Green Building Council is raising the bar for sustainable construction with the launch of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design version 4 (LEEDv4) rating system at the 2013 Greenbuild International Conference and Expo this week at the Convention Center. "The market is capable of doing a lot more than it does," said Scot Horst, a Green Building Council senior vice president who oversees LEED. The new system streamlines the arduous LEED certification process, updates previously established guidelines to match more recent building codes, offers a new breakdown of standards by sector, and encourages collaboration among the architects, builders, and others involved in the construction and design process.

IF YOU THINK the movie-ratings system in the U.S. is arbitrary, maybe you should go to Sweden. In the equality-minded Scandinavian country, they're introducing a new rating to highlight gender bias, or rather the absence of it. To get an "A" rating, a movie must pass the so-called Bechdel test, which means it must have at least two named female characters who talk with each other about something other than a man. Like, say, "Thelma and Louise....

FOR THE 35th consecutive season, the Daily News is attempting to give college basketball coaches a helping hand with recruiting. Our five categories for seniors are point guards, wing guards, small forwards, power forwards and centers. Players are categorized by the position we expect them to play in college. But remember, a player's role can depend upon the level of school he attends. The players in "The Best" category are those we believe would be most capable of playing in Division I or the higher levels of Division II, or in a competitive junior-college program if there's a need for academic strengthening.

West Chester Henderson sophomore swimmer Tom McCormick showed recently he's up to the task even though older brothers Ken and Dave have set some tough standards for him. In Henderson's 114-71 loss to Methacton on Dec. 12, Tom McCormick set a Methacton pool record in his specialty, the 100-yard breaststroke, with a time of 58.48 seconds. That time was .82 of a second better than the mark set in 1997 by Methacton's Dan Szilier, who went on to swim for Notre Dame. "I aspire to be as good as my brothers," said McCormick, who comes from a family of swimmers.

Question: I just booked a hotel room in New Orleans through Hotwire. It seemed like a great deal. The listing was for a 4.5-star hotel. I started looking around their website, trying to determine what the possibilities were, and by looking at the "hotel plus car" section I was able to see that there seemed to be three nice choices of 4.5-star hotels in the area the listing was in. I was specifically trying to avoid the Le Pavillon Hotel...

Shouldn't the Terminator be a character portrayed in a violent video game, rather than the guy who's out to ban the games' sales to minors? It's certainly an out-of-character role being played by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who plans to dispatch lawyers to the Supreme Court in November to argue for reinstating a law in his state banning kids' purchase or rental of some games. Schwarzenegger says he's acting with a parent's eye toward protecting children from violent images.